Amidst the congregation for America's latest meeting between God and football, an exclusive look at just how big the leader of Christian Nation has become

SAN DIEGO — So there were about four minutes left in regulation and Tim Tebow actually set still those miraculously restless feet of his for a goddamn second and threw an actual pass up into the Sunday sun. Somewhere underneath with his arms extended ran Eric Decker, a kid from Minnesota who is dating a pretty country singer by the name of Jessie James, but that's another story. Everywhere around them, in every section of this old concrete monastery to sub-par football, the Tebow faithful held their arms out wider still and sniffed, as if breathing the same bratwurst-infused air as No. 15 was going to get them closer to Our Lord and Savior, or something. They were not visiting, the faithful. They were already home, looking for what they did not know. The Denver Broncos were in field-goal range, and one of them cried.

Even the model-thin local girl a few rows in front of me, the cut-off Chargers jersey exposing a heart tattoo just above her left ass cheek — even she took another slow sip on her Budweiser and pondered what, exactly, was being delivered here, besides maybe just Tebow's fifth win in six professional starts. Of course the good people of San Diego can sometimes smoke a little too much of their medicinal stuff and seem a half-beat from what's happening on the field. (Except for the one who cold-cocked the guy from Denver making fun of their powder-blue jerseys, although he probably deserved it.) But Tim Tebow brings church to state, and by halftime, when Junior Seau asked for an Amen during his acceptance speech into the Chargers Hall of Fame, even those who went outside to smoke a little more had more than mumbled a response. By the two-minute warning, there was the same kind of quiet energy, but we were all zealots. The powder-blue jerseys seemed to give way to more No. 15s, which the NFL tells Esquire.com they tend to do:

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As of (Cyber) Monday afternoon, NFLShop.com had no word on those jerseys with JESUS on the back. Or whether Tebow would later become the eighth Republican candidate for president of the United States. But his jersey was sitting in second behind Aaron Rodgers, and might just be the top-ranked by the time end-of-month figures are made available.

A Chargers fan was quick to remind me that his quarterback, Philip Rivers (whom many here have begun to call Phyllis instead), attends Mass and enters the Confessional every day. But another, just as the "Tebowing" thing starts to fade from Internet meme into regular sideline cutaway, just as the rest of the Charger fans were chanting to fire their coach (and they were winning at this point) — he just as quickly said: "How can you hate this fucking guy?"

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I grew up in Denver; I'm a Broncos fan. I wrote a book about Red Grange, who played in the 1920s, when the forward pass was rarely used as an offensive weapon. And as pure skills go, Tim Tebow is the most boring quarterback I have seen play in person or on television, or read about, by far. He thrives in the spread offense, which usually consists of a handoff to his running back, or an option play, which allows Tebow to run, or flick the ball to his option man, or pass it as capably as his passing skills allow. (Which, by the way, would be considered below average at the high-school level — he holds the ball too long, and in Sunday's pre-game warm-ups he messed up as many passes as he didn't.) This week, it looked like the Broncos ran a variety of about four plays, which either completely confused San Diego or otherwise transfixed it.

It was beyond reason, but it was not unbelievable.

Tim Tebow went 9 of 18 for 143 yards, but there he was at the end, turning a broken play into a score and making you wonder, against your better judgment — against any judgment, really — if Intelligent Design wasn't a crock of shit after all. Yes, the people around me (and I switched seats a couple times) were actually discussing religion. Some of them were drunk or high or both, but still: The kid with the pretty girlfriend caught one of those nine, and the Broncos tied the game, and then Nick Novak, when Tim Tebow prayed against him, missed wide right for the home team, and Tebow got them close enough to win and enough people cheered that weren't supposed to that a couple more of the faithful cried, and it was a good day for Jesus Christ in there somewhere. Probably His jersey, too.

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